NEW DELHI: Looking to tap all available resources for improving its financial health, Indian Railways is now considering bringing organisational changes to better productivity of its 13 lakh employees.
To zero in upon changes required, railways has been crowd sourcing ideas from top human resources professionals, technology experts and communication experts.
To discuss it further, railways Thursday organised a round table on human resources, which was attended by management experts like Naina Lal Kidwai, CEO HSBC India, Dinesh K Sarraf, CMD ONGC and Sunil Kumar Maheshwari, Professor, IIM, Ahmedabad.
Speaking at the Round Table, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said that Railway is a large organisation and for every big organisation, it is necessary to revisit the basic issues, introspect and bring a change to be competitive, versatile and efficient.
“Organisation must constantly revisit its objective and try to cater to the needs of people. For development of Railways, people in the organisation should be created to face the challenges. Railways need to clearly define the corporate goals, it should create the organised structure then it should place the right people in the organisation,” said Prabhu.
He said that railways has a commercial role, social role and welfare role and has to meet expectations of people which are unique and conflicting.
“Railway is the most important strategic asset of country. It is important for economic, social aspect which cannot be overlooked. The change should start from the top level so it should be discernible to the people. Railways as an organisation should cater to the larger corporate goals, corporate goals should cater to societal priorities,” the minister said.
The minister was of the view that action and attention should be at divisional level and railway divisions as a business unit should be a focal point of the changes.
Indian Railways is the biggest civilian employer in the country spanning the length and breadth of the sub-continent within strength of over 13 lakh employees. The employees are spread over 10 departments in 17 Zones, 6 Production Units and 68 Divisions.
Chairman Railway Board AK Mital said that in all other organization the cost of employees is around 30 percent whereas in Indian Railways it is 60 percent of the operation cost.
“The need of the hour is to increase the earning so that the cost of employees will go down which will be possible only when efficiency and output of each and every employees will improve,” said Mital.